Judge approves order to complete ballot counting
As the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District race remains too close to call, a judge on Wednesday approved Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s order to authorize local election officials to continue counting primary ballots that were received on time and had not been tallied by the end of Tuesday night.
The Suffolk Superior Court judge approved Galvin’s petition late Wednesday afternoon, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office.
The count will take place today. Several location election officials have reported to Galvin’s office that they have not yet completed their final counts because of the significant number of mail-in ballots and the last-minute arrival of many of those ballots.
“Existing state laws lack procedures for the counting of state primary ballots after Election Day,” his office said in a statement. “In order to ensure that the ballot counting process is fully transparent for all candidates and voters, Secretary Galvin is filing a petition with Suffolk Superior Court to ensure that local election officials have the legal authorization they need to tally ballots in a manner that is open to public observation.”
Galvin said in a statement, “On Election Day, there are strict procedures in place to make sure that ballots are counted in public view, where anyone may observe the process. It is important that we preserve that same level of transparency for ballots counted after Election Day.”
The crowded 4th Congressional District race for Joe Kennedy III’s open seat was “still too close to call” on Wednesday after Jake Auchincloss surged into the lead over Jesse Mermell.
With more than 96% of precincts in as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, Auchincloss was up by 1,506 votes over Mermell — 33,216 to 31,710.
Mermell’s campaign manager said in a statement about Galvin’s order, “We are pleased to see the actions being taken by clerks and Secretary of State Galvin to secure and count all the votes in this race. This is exactly in line with the concerns our campaign raised earlier today.”
“Given the unprecedented nature of this election process, we believe it is incumbent on all communities to be clear about how many ballots are outstanding, including ballots that arrived as polls closed, so that we can have the utmost confidence in the end result,” the manager added.
Auchincloss said in a statement, “Every vote in the Massachusetts Fourth received before 8PM last night must be counted.”
A recount can happen if the margin is 0.5% or less. The current margin in the 4th race is 1%.